pdf унших - survey on citizens' political decision making

1.1 The aim and objectives of the survey This survey was completed in September-November 2019 by SICA LLC funded by KonradAdenauer-Foundation. The survey aims to define the attitudes towards citizens' current political situation and to identify factors and motivations that affect their decision-making. The following objectives have been put in place to achieve the aim of the survey. These include:

• Determine the degree of political activism and interest of citizens, 
• Determine how often the government information and other political news are available from which sources,
• Identify factors affecting citizen's political decision-making. Namely, how many political parties and their candidates were trying to give gifts and cash to citizens; and how much they tried to buy their votes during the Parliamentary Election of 2016 and to measure quantitative whether it was realistic
• Identify what level of trust to politicians and political parties among citizens, and what will be expected of them in the future.

1.2 Importance In recent years, a criticism that Mongolia's elections are not free, fair, and democratic has increased. Politicians were giving a lot of gifts, cash and supplies to citizens during election and holiday celebrations, are repeatedly documented and criticized. Researchers are warned that despite the banning of laws, the buying of voters violates the fundamental principles of democracy. International election observers reported that more than 500 complaints were filed last year by the National Police Agency (NPA), as many complaints were related to sell votes. However, public statistical research has not yet been conducted as to whether or not the buying votes. It is a misunderstanding to conclude that if the citizens received gifts, they must be sold their votes. The voting rights and the opportunity to vote for candidates are open to citizens even they received gifts. Therefore, it is one of the main aims of the survey to consider separately the two concepts of gifts and vote buying. If buying votes is realistic, and many citizens change their voice and views in exchange for money, our country's democracy will be deeply in crisis. However, if the attempts to buy a vote were mostly unsuccessful, the politicians who use that strategy proved to be beneficial for them to spend their money on something else. In this report, we present only the aggregate results of the survey. In the next report, the survey data will be used in more in-depth statistical methods and answer specific questions.

• Principles followed The following principles were followed during data collection and reporting. These include:

• Using a scientific-based and integrated methodology,
• The confidentiality of the respondents' information, Page | 5 Survey on citizens’ political decision-making
• All concepts and definitions should be clear and understandable to stakeholders (eg, questionnaire developers, data collectors, and data analysts)
• The data collected by the survey should be consistent with the purpose and accurate,
• The findings and reports should be clear and understandable,
• Be honest,
• Provide equity,
• Be interfere with and independent. The basic concept definition refers to a definition of indicators that will estimate based on survey units and survey data consistent with the survey objectives.